a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the design and manufacture of a family of catheter electrode assemblies for use in cardiac procedures.
b. Background Art
Electrophysiology catheters are used in a variety of diagnostic and/or therapeutic medical procedures to diagnose and/or correct conditions such as atrial arrhythmias, including for example, ectopic atrial tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, and atrial flutter. Arrhythmias can create a variety of conditions including irregular heart rates, loss of synchronous atrioventricular contractions and stasis of blood flow in a chamber of a heart which can lead to a variety of symptomatic and asymptomatic ailments and even death.
A medical procedure in which an electrophysiology catheter is used includes a first diagnostic catheter deployed through a patient's vasculature to a patient's heart or a chamber or vein thereof. An electrophysiology catheter that carries one or more electrodes can be used for cardiac mapping or diagnosis, ablation and/or other therapy delivery modes or both. Once at the intended site, treatment may include radio frequency (RF) ablation, cryoablation, laser ablation, chemical ablation, high-intensity focused ultrasound-based ablation, microwave ablation, etc. An electrophysiology catheter imparts ablative energy to cardiac tissue to create one or more lesions in the cardiac tissue and oftentimes a contiguous or linear and transmural lesion. This lesion disrupts undesirable cardiac activation pathways and thereby limits, corrals, or prevents stray errant conduction signals that can form the basis for arrhythmias. As readily apparent, such diagnosis and therapy delivery requires precise control of the electrophysiology catheter during manipulation to, from, and at a target tissue site for diagnostic and therapy delivery. Diagnostic maps of activation wavefronts and ectopic foci and various pathological and non-pathological conduction pathways can be stored and available to later access during therapy delivery.